@tcnw71: "Interesting bit towards the end of the 1oc bbc news today.
Wm ...
Reply-To: address valid for at least 7 days from date of posting"
    @tcnw71: "Wed, 6 Sep 2006 13:35:48 <xAMNZRAkCs$EFwU1@[83.161.120.155]> uk.comp.vintage 
Wm... <email_address>
<quote>
Following up my own posting, I wonder if Jules or someone else can 
answer this:  is the human history (for example the testimony of the 
lady in the news bulletin) being "rebuilt" too?  Some of the people who 
worked on those machines are surely dead by now and it occurs to me that 
we should be gathering their experiences while we can.
Wm ...
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    @tcnw71: "Wed, 6 Sep 2006 13:35:48 <xAMNZRAkCs$EFwU1@[83.161.120.155]> uk.comp.vintage 
Wm... <email_address>
<quote>
Me again, sorry (sort of)
<url>
Wm ...
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    @tcnw71: "Thu, 28 Sep 2006 22:15:07 
<email_address> uk.comp.vintage 
Jules <email_address>
[much munched]
<quote>
It seems to me we have some bright, older people following this group. 
(I consider myself a youngster, early 40's).
Maybe meetings [1] could be arranged between the people who contribute 
here on a technical point and the people who actually changed the disks 
etc.
I am a little troubled about this.  The best disk changer I knew was a 
coloured (in Southern African terms at the time) woman.  No dirt was 
allowed.  She got paid only slightly more than the person that cleaned 
the offices but was doing so much more.
I know we are all clever clogs in one way or another but does anyone 
else have a story of a vintage nature where someone actually made a 
computer run and most people didn't realise who was actually making it 
function?
[1] ok, maybe *a* meeting
Wm ... Reply-To: address valid for at least 7 days
Recently read and recommended:
John Irving - The Fourth Hand
Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go"
    @noname: "<quote>
Sydney University proudly announced that their Illiac I (called Silliac) 
was to be replaced by a new high-speed KDF9. The story goes that the 
local manufacturer-supplied site engineer found the two technicians 
employed by the University were a constant pain in the side. A year or 
two after installation, the KDF9 was playing up, and despite all his 
attempts he couldn't get to the bottom of the problem. So he was flown, 
at vast expense, back to Old Blighty to investigate the possible causes.
While he was away, the two doltish technicians painstakingly backed out 
every hardware change that had been done to the machine, until, at one 
point, it suddenly worked!
:-)
Doug
Using MT-NewsWatcher v3.4 on the Mac"
    @tcnw71: "Sun, 1 Oct 2006 21:57:26 
<email_address> uk.comp.vintage 
Doug <email_address>
<quote>
Smile noted.
What should we learn from this?  One view might be that two technicians 
were sabotaging the efforts of the manufacturer-supplied engineer.  Not 
unlikely considering unionism in Oz at the time.
The point is no one is going to be able to work out what really happened 
in a decade or so's time unless we start taking notes now.
Do you want apochrophylia [1] to replace facts?
[1] let history know it was just after 3am and I couldn't be arsed to 
make sure the spelling of apochrophylia was incorrect :)
Wm ... Reply-To: address valid for at least 7 days
Recently read and recommended:
John Irving - The Fourth Hand
Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go"
    @julesrichardsonuk: "<quote>
It's a hugely understated problem. For example, when we get a new (old)
piece of kit arrive at the museum, it typically comes not only with some
(hopefully all!) of the original documentation, but also with a big wodge
of the owner's notes and experiences of actually using the hardware.
Of those notes, a huge fraction of it is going to be stuff that really is
irrelevant (as it's documented elsewhere, now widely known, or simply
relates to some programming task that they were undertaking which doesn't
relate to anything we may want to use the hardware for). 
Problem is, there *may* be a tiny fraction of those notes that are
important or useful, either to us or to the wider community of collectors
/ enthusiasts. But nobody ever has the time to read through them and
understand them - even with ten times the manpower that still wouldn't be
possible.
So they lie unused in a box somewhere in the hope that one day someone
might get around to looking at them - during which they're open to paper
/ ink decay, or of the subtle connection between them and the hardware to
which they relate being lost.
User experiences (as in technical information for maintenance / usage
purposes, rather than anecdotes) have their own problems - in that quite
often they're completely wrong. After so many years, usually spent not
using the hardware at all, the mind seems to play funny tricks on people
and they remember aspects of the hardware incorrectly. I'd estimate that
about 2/3 of things remembered as fact by people who used the systems are
correct, with the other 1/3 being total fabrication (although recalled
with absolute certainty). Recording user experiences is hard enough, but
recording them and then sifting out only the ones that are real can be
almost impossible.
So, the upshot of that is that taking notes *now* is quite often too late
- it's something that needed to be done at the time and in an
organised way rather than the 'random' scribbles that we often see.
cheers
Jules"
    @tcnw71: "Mon, 2 Oct 2006 15:25:57 
<email_address> uk.comp.vintage 
Jules <email_address>
[Please note, this is a "thinking aloud" posting, I know some points may 
seem to be questioning Jules but that isn't the emotion in which I am 
writing]
<quote>
Hmmmn, is what you want to use it for more relevant than what someone 
else used it for?  Surely the practical detail (what someone used a 
computer for) is relevant and related?
Here is an idea (I am just throwing this in the air, anyone is free to 
shoot the idea down), how about getting someone relatively cheap (I know 
that sounds horrible) or someone with time on their hands but a working 
brain (perhaps a retired person) to scan the docs into a Wiki or 
similar.
The documents, notes, etc. would then be there for other people to 
comment on.
Is there perhaps a professional jealousy issue here?  (I mean in 
general, not Jules). Somewhere in that pile of paper there is a PhD and 
someone may not want everyone to see it.  I am not talking about 
national security type stuff but the paucity of just under the best 
professional academics who have to scrape for something new to write 
about.
The Wiki idea above would allow peer review, conflicting interests could 
be expressed; I suppose the posting you replied to (my comment on what 
Doug said) amounts to a peer review of opinion.
Perhaps the sifting and sorting out should be left to the next 
generation?  My Wiki idea is suggesting that in a decade's time someone 
might look and see "hmmm, both Joan Soap and Fred Bloggs said the IBM 
nnnn was good at calculus but not logs", or whatever.  If it isn't 
recorded then they have bugger all to work on and the paper in the boxes 
might have turned to mush because the fire brigade had to deal with an 
overflowing ashtray.
I disagree about the "too late".  With blogs etc. there is a lot of data 
(I don't think information would be the right word) available about 
*now*.  The equivalent of a blog about what was happening in computing 
in 1960 is going to be available from fewer and fewer people.  When they 
are gone it is gone.
I am about to post this and re-reading it I can see I have said some 
things that not everyone is going to agree with.  I really do mean this 
as something thrown in the air.  Maybe someone else has a better idea?
Wm ... Reply-To: address valid for at least 7 days
Recently read and recommended:
John Irving - The Fourth Hand
Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go"
    @tcnw71: "Mon, 2 Oct 2006 17:25:22 
<email_address> uk.comp.vintage 
Jules <email_address>
<quote>
I was going to ask if the output was on the webternet somewhere but 
reading below ...
... oh, well.  Just because they are used to use computers doesn't mean 
they have to know how to use e-mail :)
Jules, this can't be a one man [1] band thing, I am just pleased you 
thought about it.
[1] it has just occurred to me that I don't know if Jules is a boy Jules 
or a girl Jules.  You shouldn't answer the implied question of course, 
Jules, because it doesn't matter.
Wm ... Reply-To: address valid for at least 7 days
Recently read and recommended:
John Irving - The Fourth Hand
Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go"
    @julesrichardsonuk: "<quote>
OK, I'm told that this is something that the park Trust themselves are
handling, rather than it being within the remit of the rebuild team (and
I'm told that they've been doing that for a few years, rather than it
being something that they're only now worrying about). 
That probably means that I can't uncover any more precise details from
here though (experience has been that the park staff themselves aren't
particularly good at email queries, and I'm not about to make an
international phone call to ask :-)
You can always give me a prod in December though when I'm back in the UK
and I'll try to find a human being to talk to then! (Or give them a bell
from within the UK; contact phone numbers certainly used to be on the
Bletchley Park website)
cheers
Jules"
    @noname: "<quote>
Hmmm. I knew all three - though not the technicians so well - and can 
form an opinion. But it is certain that I knew nothing of the technical 
details, so I could be wrong.
Oh, the unions weren't active (in that sense) at Sydney University in 
those days.
Doug
Using MT-NewsWatcher v3.4 on the Mac"
    @noname: "<quote>
Uh, Jules... Organising them, by definition, can obscure the truth :-)
Doug
Using MT-NewsWatcher v3.4 on the Mac"
    @julesrichardsonuk: "<quote>
:-)
In the context of user experiences though, if they're not collected and
organised now then they'll eventually be gone as the people who can
contribute them pass away. "
    @julesrichardsonuk: "<quote>
No worries! 
I just typed a huge reply to this, then ditched it as I realised it was
just *too* huge!
So, the short answer is:
Yes, we'd love to make everything we have available online and open to
discussion (copyright permitting). I really think it'd be detrimental to
computer preservation as a whole to not do that. 
But to achieve that we need *lots* of funding, companies that are willing
to help us out, and (I suspect) a government that cares about history and
preservation. These past few years, the UK hasn't been a particularly good
place to find any of those... (it's rather depressing contrasting with the
situation in the US!)
Of course we also need lots more warm bodies to achieve our aims, but
people power's only useful if the framework is present to actually do
something with the data that they produce.
So, it's really a money problem first, quickly followed by a time one...
cheers
Jules"
    @julesrichardsonuk: "<quote>
Yep, far as I know it's not. I don't know if any of the Park's archives
are available online. I'm not even sure if they're available to the
general public at all, which seems to defeat the purpose of having them!
(Although that seems to be typical of most museums, unfortunately; they
only want you to see the bits that they put out on display)
Indeed. Although, for clarity, we (as in the computer museum) are a
separate group in our own right and just make use of space on the Park.
The Park themselves do have a very small computer collection, although I'm
not sure where any of it's kept - I've not stumbled across it in the few
years that I've been helping out there.
Historically though it seems that I've had ties with a lot of
the private collectors and enthusiasts out there where others in the
group haven't, so when I started helping out with things I've naturally
acted as point of contact with the wider community in a lot of cases.
(There are others in the group whose links seem to be more with other
museums or entities such as the BCS, and others still who have contacts
within specific companies)
Heh heh, well I'm a boy Jules for the record. I'm a shade over 30, so I
know I'm younger than you, but I have no idea how that age fits in with
some of the other regulars here - it's hard to judge how old people are. 
cheers
J."
    @julesrichardsonuk: "<quote>
It seems that in the UK companies don't believe that there's any benefit
to them in giving money or equipment to attractions of a historical
nature, though. That's even with the backing of some big names like the
BCS and the Science Museum, and being based in such a prime location. 
Maybe it's the nature of the beast and the fact that the subject is
computer-related is a hinderance - after all, computer companies seem
particularly fast-paced and focused on the 'next big thing', with how
they actually got to where they are being totally unimportant.
That's not to say that by chance we might not stumble on someone
sympathetic; I'm sure that there are people out there who would be willing
to help - but experience over the last year hasn't been at all positive."
    @tcnw71: "Tue, 3 Oct 2006 16:22:40 
<email_address> uk.comp.vintage 
Jules <email_address>
Wm:
<quote>
I normally write quite easily without knowing other peoples gender, the 
m/f thing only cropped up because changing it to "one person band" 
seemed too convoluted and I couldn't be arsed to re-write the whole 
sentence :)
As for the age thing this may be a slightly unusual group in that 
different people may have experienced the same systems a decade or more 
apart (for example me with kit that might have been obsolete in the USA 
/ Canada and Europe in the early 1980's in Southern Africa).
Wm ... Reply-To: address valid for at least 7 days
Recently read and recommended:
John Irving - The Fourth Hand
Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go"
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